Free California caselaw search on LawDiver. Find California opinions, read full text, download official PDFs, and search the California caselaw API. Browse all guides · California research guide
Search California caselaw for free on LawDiver. This page searches California state courts — the California Supreme Court and its appellate courts — with an option on the search form to add related federal authority (District Court, C.D. California, District Court, D. California, District Court, E.D. California, District Court, N.D. California and the Ninth Circuit, plus the U.S. Supreme Court). Type a citation or case name for a known decision, or describe the legal issue in plain English and let semantic search find opinions that address it. Every opinion opens to full text with citation data, holdings, and the official court PDF. No subscription and no login.
California coverage centers on the California Supreme Court and its intermediate appellate courts, plus the related federal courts when that scope is chosen. Search is over full opinion text with Boolean, citation, case-name, and semantic engines. The app includes the 7 appellate court(s) listed in the jurisdiction picker. Federal district coverage adds 5 district court(s) sitting in California. Each result shows the official citation, court, date, holdings, and a link to the court PDF.
Related federal coverage is available on the same form: the search can include District Court, C.D. California, District Court, D. California, District Court, E.D. California and the Ninth Circuit, plus the U.S. Supreme Court, when the scope is set to “California and related federal courts.” Search all federal cases instead · Search Supreme Court cases.
LawDiver legal research API·API docs·California caselaw API·Search connectors·MCP server·CiteCheck
Find a California opinion by citation or by describing the issue.
This page is pre-set to California courts only. The jurisdiction chip should read California. Switch it to “California and related federal courts” when you also need federal district, circuit, and Supreme Court authority over that state.
Examples: a regional reporter cite, california supreme court qualified immunity, or landlord duty to mitigate. Boolean, phrase, and proximity connectors work; the rules are at /docs/search-connectors.
Open a hit to read the full text with citation, date, court, holdings, and treatment signals, and download the official court PDF.
Save the result set for AI grounding, or query the caselaw API with scope state_only and states [CA] to automate the same search.
The official sources for California opinions are the California Supreme Court and its intermediate appellate courts. LawDiver mirrors those opinions for free search with full text, holdings, and official PDFs — no subscription and no login. Federal opinions that interpret California law sit in this database too; include them by setting the scope to “California and related federal courts.”
For connector syntax — AND, OR, /s, /p, w/n, phrases — read the search connectors and boolean operators guide. LawDiver is free legal research and a free Westlaw alternative, a cheap Westlaw alternative, a free Lexis alternative, and a cheap Lexis alternative for primary law.
Search nearby jurisdictions
The California caselaw API lets you query the same California corpus from your own app. It is the LawDiver legal research API filtered to California — search, retrieve, cite-check, and download PDFs over the same ten million opinions the site searches, free during the current rollout. Base URL https://lawdiver.com/api/v1. Authentication is an API key in Authorization: Bearer …. See the legal research API and API docs. Responses are JSON with opinion metadata, holdings, text, and citation data.
cURL — California state courts only
curl -s https://lawdiver.com/api/v1/search/caselaw \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $LAWDIVER_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"query":"your search here","scope":{"kind":"state_only","states":["CA"]},"searchType":"auto"}' | jqcURL — California plus related federal
curl -s https://lawdiver.com/api/v1/search/caselaw \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $LAWDIVER_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"query":"qualified immunity","scope":{"kind":"state_plus_federal","states":["CA"]},"searchType":"semantic"}' | jqFetch — California caselaw API
const res = await fetch("https://lawdiver.com/api/v1/search/caselaw", {
method: "POST",
headers: { Authorization: "Bearer " + process.env.LAWDIVER_API_KEY, "Content-Type": "application/json" },
body: JSON.stringify({ query: "premises liability invitee", scope: { kind: "state_only", states: ["CA"] }, searchType: "auto" })
});
const data = await res.json();To cite-check a brief against California authorities, send it to POST /api/v1/citecheck/documents or paste into CiteCheck. To put California caselaw into an AI agent, use the LawDiver MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor. For bulk licensing, see bulk data.
On LawDiver at /caselaw/california. Search California opinions by citation, case name, or a plain-English description of the legal issue, then read the full text and download the official PDF with no login.
Yes. LawDiver is a free Westlaw alternative and a free Lexis alternative for California court opinions, with full text and official PDFs at no cost and no subscription. It covers primary law reading and searching; it does not bundle every commercial treatise.
Open /caselaw/california and type the regional or official citation for that state. The citation engine finds the opinion directly and shows its official PDF and later treatment.
Yes. LawDiver runs semantic search over California opinion text, so a plain-English question about the issue returns relevant opinions even when they use different wording. Boolean, phrase, and proximity search also work.
Yes. On /caselaw/california, switch the scope to “California and related federal courts” to add the federal district courts sitting in California, the Ninth Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court to the same result set.
Yes. Every California opinion on LawDiver links to the official court PDF where available, and a selection of cases can be exported as one structured research PDF.
Yes. The LawDiver California caselaw API is part of the legal research API at /docs/api and is free during the current rollout. Query with scope state_only and states [CA] for California only, or state_plus_federal to include related federal courts. See /products/api and the code samples below.
Yes. CiteCheck at /products/citecheck and the API verifier check whether a California citation is still good law against the live corpus.
Looking for operators? See the boolean search operators guide, or the API documentation.